


Is This Real?

by SoulOfStars



Category: Faerie Folklore
Genre: Gen, Mildly Unnerving Imagery, Names, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 03:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20324461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulOfStars/pseuds/SoulOfStars
Summary: A boy meets one of the Fair Folk before dawn





	Is This Real?

Water rose in his peripheral vision, flooding the floor of a dark room.  
There was nothing above, nothing below.  
He was in the center of a web of lies. 

Something appeared in the corner of his eye, then disappeared.  
He couldn’t look.  
He wasn’t supposed to look.  
Some instinct in him forbade it, screamed that there would be no coming back from this.  
He looked. 

It was himself.  
A mirror image,  
Left on the right and right on the left.  
He looked younger,  
Smaller,  
Stronger.  
He smiled. 

The world was silent for a long moment.  
Time stretched and stretched, then the moment broke.  
“Hello,” he said. “Who are you?” 

The boy in the mirror smiled at him again.  
“I’m you.”  
The light reflected back from the water onto his skin. 

He was suddenly unsure of himself.  
Was this real?  
He didn’t think it was supposed to be real.  
Instead of saying that, he made a confused noise. 

“I’m me. You can’t be me because I’m me.” 

His mirror image stopped smiling.  
“I’m you,” he repeated himself, louder.  
His eyes went from brown to blue to brown again.  
It looked like he was wearing a cap for a second before it flickered out of existence.  
This wasn’t real. 

He didn’t want to think about what would happen if it were real.  
He takes a deep breath and remembers what his mum told him to do. 

“No,” he told the creature in the mirror mildly.  
He tried his best to look polite.  
“You are not me. Will you give me your name, not-me?”  
The creature in the mirror smiled again, teeth a little sharper than before. 

“You are clever, little one.”  
He woke up.


End file.
